Category: Commentary/Editorial || By

I interviewed someone yesterday who was on a very bad cell phone connection. Every few words and syllables would either be dropped entirely, or garbled.

I would ask a question, and the person on the other end would respond, "So I --- ----ed --- middle --- -- th---- --en s---t the --- took --- like --- year." It was as if Richard Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, was editing the call.

From time to time, the person I was interviewing would simply disappear. And I'd say, "Hello? Hello?" And he'd swim back up through what sounded like gargling noises.

. . .

After about 20 minutes of this aggravation, I finally said, "Look, can I call you back on a different number? Maybe a landline?"

He was in his early 20s, and he replied, "Um ... I think we have a landline here, but I've never used it."

I said, "Well, can I just call you on it?" He said, "Um ... I don't know the number?"

I felt like asking, "Is there a grown-up in the house I can talk to? Put your mommy or daddy on the phone, please."

. . .

This is increasingly a problem, I find --- people who only have a cell phone, and one that offers marginal sound quality, at best.

The problem got worse several years ago, when analog cell phone service was turned off, replaced by all-digital cell phone service.

We're used to "digital" being a selling point indicating more precision and better quality, and it often is. Digital TV offers a better picture than analog TV, in my opinion.

As a kid who grew up with a TV with a "rabbit-ears" antenna on top of it, I can remember when trying to get a clear picture in McKeesport from Channels 16, 22 and 53 was an exercise in frustration. Even KDKA-TV was a mystery, sometimes, at our house. Would anyone prefer to go back to fighting with "ghosts" and "snow" and pictures that flipped and rolled?

. . .

The problem with digital is that it's either "on" or "off." When an old analog cell phone began to lose signal, you got static, but generally you could still make out the conversation. With digital cell phones, it seems like you can have a "good" connection but still get a lousy call, with a conversation full of gaps, or else a caller who sounds like Donald Duck when he's gargling.

I've noticed similar problems with people who have digital landline telephone service --- delivered via Comcast or Verizon FiOS. They may be talking on a wired phone that plugs into a socket in the wall, but their voices are still being turned from analog sound waves into digital bits, and I've had conversations with them that were plagued with weird noises, echoes and delays. And not all of those were caused by me.

. . .

I'm not a Luddite. I think cell phones --- particularly smart phones --- are amazing. Besides the obvious cool features of smart phones, such as listening to music or surfing the web, there are apps that can help you get a better night's sleep, count calories and maximize your exercise routines.

There are apps that let you scan barcodes at the supermarket and find out who makes a certain product, or read reviews from people who have tried it. I wouldn't want to go back to the pay telephone era, or the era when cell phones were the size of suitcases and had to be plugged into your car.

But I keep a regular, wired, old-fashioned telephone at home just so that I can have a reasonable conversation with friends and family, and so that I can still use the telephone if the electricity goes out. (The wired telephone network uses its own batteries and power supplies.)

. . .

With the level of sophistication built into the average smart phone, it seems to me that conversations should be crystal-clear most, if not all, of the time. We should be getting FM stereo-like sound from our cell phones --- by now, talking to your friend or relative across the country should sound "like it's right next door," as a commercial for a long-distance company used to say.

Instead, we've gone backwards, significantly. We have smart phones that can do everything except make a damned phone call.

Where have you gone, Ma Bell? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you (whoo whoo whoo).

. . .

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